Public contestations against the disturbance, degradation, and destruction of sámi pastoral landscapes in northern Sweden

Abstract

A new wave of encroachments is unfolding in Northern Sweden on the lands of Indigenous Sámi reindeer pastoralists. Even if the State and corporations may accept that landscape transformations represent threats to reindeer pastoralists' cultural and livelihood practices, attempts to redress these grievances often involve money to cover costs associated with feeding practices or mechanized transport. This paper considers these landscape transformations as driven by industrial capitalist expansion and underlying colonial relations, examining their broader implications on human-animal relations in pastoral landscapes. We apply an ecologically informed radical geography approach and conduct a content analysis of claims-making instances around the new wave of encroachments and their associated compensation schemes, complemented with basic GIS data. Relying on three cases of public contestations, we argue that encroachments represent threats that disturb, degrade, and destroy pastoral landscapes, and that while counter-hegemonic struggles try to diminish the reach of capital into these landscapes to maintain human-animal relations based on natural pastures, hegemonic actors seek to alter such relations to deepen capital's reach. Although reindeer pastoralists have many allies, we argue that broader coalitions are likely necessary to push for reforms of planning regimes that can enable multi-functionality and sustainability of landscapes in rural areas.